


Ephemeral

by pterawaters



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Friendship, Gay Jonathan Byers, Ghosts, Jonathan Byers Has Powers, M/M, Romance, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:08:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23449780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters
Summary: By his freshman year of college, Jonathan is used to seeing ghosts everywhere he goes. Still, there's something about the ghost following one of his classmates that gets Jonathan's attention. His name is Steve Harrington, and according to the papers, he might not actually be dead ... yet.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 25
Kudos: 142





	Ephemeral

**Author's Note:**

> This story was prompted by an Anon on tumblr. It was just supposed to be a ficlet, but then it grew legs. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Warnings: There are some mentions of delusions/hallucinations, mental illness, disordered eating, and car crashes.

**_January 1987_ **

By the time he was a freshman in college, Jonathan had gotten used to the fact that he saw and heard things that normal people didn’t. Filtering out the real from the not-real was something of an art. The camera his mother had given him for his thirteenth birthday had been a big help. Only the real things showed up on film. And if his art teachers liked his sanity-check photographs and saw artistic value in them, so much the better. They never won him many friends, but they won him a scholarship to NYU, his dream school. 

New York City was crowded, and honestly it helped. If his eyes tracked something that wasn’t actually there, something real was close enough behind it that no one noticed his strangeness. It was easy to blend in. 

Sometimes the visions noticed Jonathan noticing them, and would try to talk to him. Jonathan rarely responded, for fear of looking like he was talking to himself. For fear of people finding out he was crazy, actually. His first semester of school he made one friend, maybe, but he did well in all his classes and kept his scholarship. 

The first day of spring semester, Jonathan found the classroom for his freshman composition class ten minutes early. He went in and sat down, pulling out the reading for literature class. Two other students were already there, and others started to trickle in. Like always, some of the students had other figures following them, haunting them. Jonathan didn’t pay attention to any of them. That was, until a girl with curly brown hair, who was wearing a calf-length skirt and a sweater, came into the classroom. 

A tall young man followed her, crying out, “Nancy! Nancy, come on! I’m right here! Why can’t you see me?”

God, Jonathan hated the new ones. They were always so loud. He rubbed at his sore temple and steeled himself for an hour of barely being able to hear the lecture. 

“Nancy!”

The girl sat down two rows ahead of Jonathan and a few chairs over. The boy following her perched on the back of the chair next to her. “I don’t know if I can sit through another one of these nerd lectures, Nance,” he said with a scoff. “I mean, there’s a reason I go to State, you know. It’s a good party school. Not so serious, like here at NYU.”

The boy looked around, and Jonathan averted his eyes so he wouldn’t see Jonathan watching. 

“I bet every one of these bastards has a stick up their ass,” the boy said. “Pretentious creeps, each and every one of them. I don’t know why you wanted to go here. I don’t know why I wasn’t … I don’t know, _enough_ or something. Enough to make you stay.”

The boy sighed. “Yeah, I know you can’t hear me. Which sucks, because I can’t figure out how to get back home, instead of stuck here with you.” He gave a loud groan, and then told the girl, “No, I know why I’m here. I’m still in love with you. Like I have been since the first time you called me an idiot.” 

Somehow, Jonathan had missed the professor entering the lecture hall, until she started speaking. He did his best to keep his attention on her and take notes, but the boy kept making stupid little remarks. 

“Okay, yeah, maybe this lady has a Ph.D. or whatever, but how can you ignore the fact that she looks exactly like Cruella DeVille?”

Jonathan let half a chuckle slip before he could stop himself. The boy whipped around, obviously having heard him. Jonathan tried to avert his eyes in time, but it was too late. The boy met his gaze, eyes going wide as he made the realization that Jonathan could see and hear him. 

“Holy shit!” he cried, scrambling up and over the row of chairs in between them. He blocked Jonathan’s view of the professor. “You can see me!”

With a sigh, Jonathan gave a slight nod of his head. 

“You can see me and you can hear me!”

Jonathan nodded again. Then he turned to the last page in his notebook and wrote, “Sit down and shut up. I will talk to you after class.” He turned the notebook around so the boy would be able to read it. 

“I mean,” the boy said, looking around at the classroom. “Fair enough.”

He climbed over the row of chairs directly in front of Jonathan and looked at the one next to him. “Hey, do you mind folding that down? I can’t seem to touch anything these days.”

Jonathan sighed again, but he folded down the seat next to his and kept it in place with his knee. The boy sat next to Jonathan, jiggling his leg nervously and humming to himself as he looked around. 

By the time lecture was over, Jonathan was about ready to kill the guy. Again, if it was possible. 

“So, you gonna talk to me now?” He asked after the professor dismissed class. 

Jonathan wrote down, “Not here. Follow me,” and showed it to the boy.

“Oh, right. Okay,” he replied, putting his hands in his pockets and following Jonathan from the lecture hall. 

They were just outside the building when he said, “Okay, but this is so weird. No one can see me except for you. And it’s January somehow? The last thing I remember was driving home from school for Christmas break. I lost at least three weeks somewhere.”

Shit. Jonathan hated this part. New ghosts were always so confused about their deaths. Jonathan still wasn’t quite sure the ghosts weren’t all delusions from his obviously ill brain. Most of them he managed to avoid, or ignore, or drive away. 

There was something different about this one. Maybe because he was the same age as Jonathan. Or because he was haunting the girl he’d obviously been in love with. 

Jonathan had never acted on any of his romantic feelings. For anyone. It always felt like too much of a risk. Sooner or later, they would find out he was weird and never speak to him again. Just like every friend he’d ever had. None of them stayed past when Jonathan slipped up and started conversing with people they couldn’t see. 

It wasn’t a very good look. 

Jonathan brought the ghost to his dorm room – a single, thank god – and closed the door before saying, “Okay, yes. I can hear you and see you. No, no one else can. I have no idea why you’re here, but you’re dead and you need to make peace with that fact.”

The guy blinked at him for a long moment before cracking a smile. “No way, dude! You’ve got to be kidding me! I’m not dead!”

“Then try to touch...anything,” Jonathan told him gesturing to the room at large. “You can’t. None of you can. Because you’re not real, and I’m most likely schizophrenic.”

Frowning at him, the guy asked, “What’s your name?”

Jonathan sighed and sat down on his bed, resting his head in his hands. “Jonathan. What’s yours?”

“Steve Harrington,” he replied, sitting down on the bed next to him. “Where are you from?”

“Outside Indianapolis.”

“No shit!” Steve said, grinning. “I’m from Hawkins!”

Nodding, Jonathan said, “I’ve heard of it.” He gave Steve a bit of a look, before asking, “That girl you were following? Nancy? Is she from Hawkins too?”

“Yeah,” Steve said with a sigh. “We’ve been long distance since August. I’m pretty sure she was gonna break up with me over Christmas break. Can’t remember now whether she did or not.”

“I wonder if you ever made it home.” Jonathan went to his desk and found the university phone book, opening it and finding the number for the main library. 

“What are you doing?” Steve asked as Jonathan dialed the phone. 

“Trying to find out what happened to you,” he replied. When the librarian answered the phone, Jonathan asked, “Could you please tell me if you carry the Indianapolis Star?”

“The newspaper?” Steve frowned at Jonathan, watching him closely.

“Yes, I believe we do,” said the librarian. “Any idea what date range you’ll be looking at? Anything older than three months or so ago will be on microfiche.”

“Just the last month or so,” Jonathan told her. 

“Would you like me to pull those for you, dear?”

“Actually, yes, please.” After giving the librarian his name and student number, Jonathan said to Steve, “Come on. It’s time to read some obituaries.”

“You know, you’re a really morbid guy,” Steve said as he followed Jonathan from his dorm room. 

“Thanks. I get that a lot.”

~*~

Two hours later, Jonathan was just about ready to give up. “I don’t know,” he said quietly to Steve. “I can’t find your obituary.”

“What about the other articles? Maybe I was murdered!”

Sighing, Jonathan asked, “What’s the last day you remember?”

“Um,” Steve looked up at the ceiling as he thought about the question. “I think it was the nineteenth or the twentieth of December. It was Thursday.”

Looking through the papers, Jonathan said, “That Thursday was the eighteenth.”

“Sure. That day,” Steve said with an apathetic gesture.

Starting with the nineteenth, Jonathan scanned the local news section for each day. He found something on the twenty-first. He read it out loud in a whisper. “An Indiana State student was injured in a hit-and-run accident while traveling northbound on I-69, at approximately 9:30 on the night of December eighteenth. The student is in critical condition at St. Vincent Anderson Regional Hospital. Anyone who may have witnessed the incident is urged to contact Indiana state police at the following number…”

“Ha, see?” Steve said, leaning close and pointing at the article. “Critical condition. That means I’m not dead yet.”

“All it means is that you were still alive on the twenty-first,” Jonathan argued. “You could have died in the meantime.”

Steve gave Jonathan a long look before saying, “You’re a real bucket of sunshine, you know that?”

Jonathan rolled his eyes. “Hey, who’s the expert on ghosts here? The one who’s been interacting with them for the past nineteen years, or the one who’s been a ghost for at most three weeks?”

“I still say you’re wrong,” Steve insisted. “You know what? Call my mom. I’ll give you her number.”

“And say what? 'Hey, is your son dead? Can I pour some salt in that wound, too?'” He scoffed.

“No!” Steve replied, and he tried to hit Jonathan on the back of the head, but his hand whiffed right through without making contact. “Damn it! This sucks!”

“Yes it does,” Jonathan replied, picking up the paper from the twenty-second and opening it to the local news section. 

“What are you doing?” Steve asked him. 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Jonathan asked. “I’m checking for updates on your condition.”

“Oh,” Steve said, giving Jonathan a softer sort of look. “Thanks.”

Jonathan sighed and started reading. He really should have been working on the paper he had to write, or any of his photography projects. Instead he was doing research for a ghost. 

Usually he ignored ghosts until they gave up and went away, but with Steve? Jonathan just had to know whether he was an actual dead soul who needed help, or a stupid figment of Jonathan’s imagination. 

Jonathan didn’t know why he would imagine someone like Steve. He was the kind of guy Jonathan had left Indiana to get away from. Maybe he did remind Jonathan of home a little bit. His accent was familiar, compared to the myriad different ways of speaking he encountered here in New York. He’d come precisely because of that diversity, but maybe it had been a little too much, too fast. Maybe he was missing home more than he realized. 

Steve read next to Jonathan, skimming the pages with him, occasionally saying, “Hey, wait,” when Jonathan turned the page too quickly. 

They found it in the January 4th Sunday edition. “Summitville man arrested in connection to December 18th hit-and-run. A 39-year old man has been arrested…prior charges of driving under the influence… Indiana State student Steven Harrington, 19, remains in a comatose state, according to his father, Fredrick Harrington.”

“Well, you were still alive as of a little more than a week ago,” Jonathan told him. “How long have you been following that girl around?”

“Nancy,” Steve said, frowning and looking down at his hands. He shrugged. “Not that long. Two days. Maybe three. I don’t remember coming here from Indiana.”

“Shit,” Jonathan said with a sigh, realizing just as Steve must have that it was still a distinct possibility that he’d died. 

He moved onto the January fifth edition of the paper.

~*~

It was dark by the time Jonathan left the library and headed back to his dorm, Steve following along. It was obvious that Steve was sticking close to Jonathan in the absence of any other ideas. For once, Jonathan didn’t mind the company. 

He got food at the dining hall and brought it up to his room, where he could talk to Steve without anyone looking at him funny. As he started in on his food, Jonathan said, “Maybe it is time to call your parents. At least ask them for an update.”

“You can pretend to be one of my classmates,” Steve said, watching with rapt attention as Jonathan ate. “I could tell you what to – okay, this is torture. That looks so good.”

“You’re _hungry_?” Jonathan asked, setting his fork back down. “I’ve never met a ghost who was hungry before.”

“That’s cause I’m not dead,” Steve argued, raising his eyebrows and giving Jonathan an expression that honestly made him laugh. Steve smiled in response, a soft sort of smile that Jonathan wasn’t used to. 

It made Jonathan feel– oh, _shit. Shit, shit, shit._ This could not be happening. 

Desperate to get Steve to leave him alone, before he did something dumb like develop more feelings than just a stupid crush, Jonathan said, "Let's call your parents. Put this whole issue to rest."

"Cool."

Picking up his room phone, Jonathan dialed the number Steve gave him and waited while it rang.

Eventually, a woman answered, "Hello?"

"Hi, Mrs. Harrington?"

"This is," she replied.

"Hey, my name is Jonathan. I'm one of Steve's friends from school, and I was just wondering how he's doing."

Mrs. Harrington gave a deep sigh, and Jonathan hated himself for making her say this out loud. "You heard about the accident? The coma?"

"Yes, ma'am, but it's been about a week since I've heard anything. Has the situation changed at all?"

"Well, he hasn't woken up, if that's what you're asking," she replied with another sigh.

Nodding, Jonathan asked, "But he's still hanging in there, right?"

"So far."

Jonathan breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, thank you. Is there anything I can do? To help?"

Mrs. Harrington told him, "Just pray, dear. That's all we can do at this point."

"I will," Jonathan told her, even though he hadn't prayed a day in his life. "Thanks again."

"You're welcome. Have a good evening."

"You too."

As Jonathan hung up the phone, Steve asked, "I'm still alive, right?"

"Yeah," Jonathan told him, wondering how the hell he was going to get rid of Steve now. "You're still alive."

"That's good news, right?" Steve asked, moving from where he was sitting on the bed to crouching in front of Jonathan. "Hey, I'm not dead! We should celebrate!"

"You can go celebrate," Jonathan told him. "I have homework to do."

"Aw, come on!" Steve said. "How am I supposed to celebrate by myself? No one else can hear me!"

Feeling boxed-in and trapped, Jonathan lashed out. "Just because I can hear you, doesn't make you my responsibility, okay? I have my own life that I would like to live. On my own."

"You know what?" Steve said, "Yes, it does make me your responsibility. You can see me and hear me for a reason! You're _supposed_ to help me."

Jonathan scoffed. "There's no 'supposed to' in all of this, Steve. Yeah, maybe I can see you, but it doesn't _mean_ anything. It's just a big cosmic _mistake_."

Steve gave an incensed, offended squawk before saying, "Well, fuck you too, buddy. Fuck you, too." Steve stormed out, walking through the closed door.

Instantly, Jonathan felt bad. He almost went to the door and opened it to call Steve back, but he didn't. If he had, he knew he'd be stuck with Steve forever. Or at least until he finally woke up.

And Jonathan didn't need that sort of stress in his life.

He forced himself to eat the rest of his dinner - he couldn't afford to let it go to waste - and then did his homework. A few of the normal background ghosts wandered through Jonathan's room while he worked, but Steve didn't come back.

~*~

Jonathan didn't see Steve again until his next composition lecture. Just like before, Steve was following Nancy around. This time, though, he was silent. He followed her with his head down, looking depressed and despondent. Jonathan's chest clenched at the sight of him. He told himself he just felt bad for Steve. That was the _only_ reason for his emotional response. 

Steve sat quietly next to Nancy for most of the lecture, and Jonathan still had trouble concentrating on the professor. Five minutes before the end of class, Steve appeared to make some sort of decision. He stood up and walked around and through people until he got back to Jonathan. Crouching beside him, Steve said, "I can't figure out how to get home."

The pain and the longing in his voice made Jonathan's chest tighten in sympathy. 

Still, Jonathan didn't look down at Steve. Not until he said, "Nancy's seeing someone else. They… had a date last night. I didn't even realize that's what it was until they started kissing." He chuckled sadly. "It sucked."

Jonathan couldn't do it. He couldn't ignore Steve any longer. 

He sighed and wrote, "I'm sorry," on an empty page of his notebook.

Nodding, Steve said, "I tried to _walk_ all the way home. I got as far as Newark before everything just dissolved, and I was back at Nancy's door."

Jonathan pressed his lips together and nodded. When class was dismissed, he said quietly, "Stick with me."

"Yeah?" Steve asked, a bright sliver of hope shining through the despair on his face. 

Jonathan nodded. 

~*~

"Maybe I need to bring you back to your body," Jonathan said, sitting on his bed with his back against the wall and his knees up against his chest. "Maybe if I bring you back to Indiana, you'll wake up."

Steve sat next to Jonathan in much the same position. "What if it doesn't work and I end up back at Nancy's?"

Jonathan thought about this for a moment, and then suggested, "Well, let's test it. Tomorrow, I'll take the bus out as far as Princeton or something. See if you stay with me or not."

Looking around at Jonathan's dorm room, Steve asked, "Do you have that kind of time? All last semester, Nancy kept telling me about how much homework she had."

"I can do my homework on the bus," Jonathan told him. "Besides, I've been meaning to get out of the city and take a few photographs for my project."

With that same soft smile, Steve nodded. "Okay."

"Actually," Jonathan said, getting up from the bed and grabbing his camera from his desk. "Can I take your picture?"

"Do ghosts even show up in pictures?" Steve asked, even as he nodded and gestured for Jonathan to go ahead.

"No, never," Jonathan told him, lining up the shot, adjusting the focus, and then snapping the picture. 

Steve made an affronted noise, and then asked, "Who takes a picture of someone without giving them a chance to say cheese?"

Chuckling, Jonathan put his camera back up. "Fine. Say cheese."

Steve put on a stupid grin and said, "Cheeeese!"

Jonathan adjusted the focus again and took another picture. As he lowered his camera, he said, "There. Happy?"

Sarcastically, Steve said, "Oh, yeah. Ecstatic."

Jonathan couldn't help but laugh, which made Steve smile, and that smile. 

_God, that smile._

Jonathan had to look away. 

"Anyway, I should get out of your way," Steve said, standing up, looking almost bashful. "Um, what time do you want to try that experiment tomorrow?"

"After my 10 am class," Jonathan told him. "Meet here at, like noon?"

"Sure," Steve said, starting to look sad again. "I'll go watch all the movies at the theater again, or something."

Ugh, it was like he'd taken guilt-trip lessons directly from Jonathan's mother or something.

Sighing, Jonathan asked, "If you were alive, what would you be doing?"

Steve shrugged. "I dunno. Hanging out with my friends. Playing basketball. Watching TV. Those daytime soaps or something."

Jonathan judged himself very harshly in that moment, entirely for having a crush on someone with absolutely no sense of culture.

"No, okay, no," Jonathan insisted, kneeling next to his bed and pulling the long, flat box out from underneath. He opened it to reveal his collection of VHS tapes. He had more back at his mother's house, but these thirty were his favorites. "You're going to watch one of these."

"I am, huh?" 

"I'd offer you one of my books," Jonathan said, picking out a few of the tapes, "but turning the pages would be an issue." Holding up the tapes, he asked, "What are you in the mood for? Horror? Science fiction? Drama?"

Looking over Jonathan's shoulder, Steve asked, "You got any comedy?"

Shrugging, Jonathan picked up another tape and said, "Evil Dead Two is pretty funny."

"Ugh, gross," Steve said, sticking his tongue out in disgust. "I meant a _normal_ comedy, like Risky Business or National Lampoon's Vacation."

Yeah, Jonathan had confidence in his taste in movies, but he no longer had confidence in his taste in people. Scowling at Steve, Jonathan asked, "Do you want me to put on a movie for you or not?"

Steve sighed and collapsed back onto the bed. "Yes. Sorry."

Jonathan put the other tapes back and pulled out instead "An American Werewolf in London." Showing it to Steve, Jonathan asked, "Have you seen this one?"

Steve shrugged and shook his head. "No."

"The special effects alone are going to blow your mind," Jonathan told him, pushing the box of tapes back under his bed. He took the tape out of its sleeve and had to eject "The Thing" from the VCR before he could replace it with "An American Werewolf."

"What's that one?" Steve asked, nodding at the tape in Jonathan's hand. "Porn or something?"

Jonathan rolled his eyes and said, "No," as he held out the front of the tape so Steve could read it.

"I _have_ seen that one," Steve told him with a shiver. "It fucked me up, for like a week."

Laughing, Jonathan looked at the tape in his hand as he stood up and found the sleeve where he'd left it on his desk. "Really? I mean, I guess it's kind of creepy."

"Your creep-meter is totally skewed, Jonathan," Steve said, shifting back on the bed and resting his back against the wall. "I mean, you see dead people all the time, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so," Jonathan admitted, making sure the tape in the VCR was rewound before pressing play. 

Nodding, Steve gestured to the TV, "All I'm saying is that you don't get what it's like for the rest of us. We're not so used to it."

Jonathan nodded. He supposed it made sense. Still, "It's not like I see people missing heads or limbs or anything. They look like normal people. Like you."

Looking down at himself, Steve asked, "I don't look different? You can't see through me or anything?"

Shaking his head, Jonathan joined Steve, sitting on the other end of the bed. "It used to be hard for me to tell the difference. Everyone thought I was crazy. I'm still not convinced I'm not. I just got better at convincing adults I was normal."

"That sucks," Steve said.

"Yeah." 

The movie started and they both went quiet, watching together. Steve laughed at the parts where he was supposed to laugh, and jumped at the scary parts, and it was nice. Jonathan had seen the movie about a hundred times, so after the first bit, he started in on some of his homework. He only noticed it had stopped when Steve leaned close and said, "Number five is wrong."

"What?" Jonathan asked him, looking back over his math problems. Luckily for him, this was the last math class he was ever going to have to take. He just had to pass it with a good enough grade to keep his scholarship. Of course, that was easier said than done. "How is that wrong?"

"It just is," Steve said with a shrug. "The answer's like, eighty nine point something. You're way off."

Frowning, Jonathan went back over his work, and found a step where he'd put the decimal point in the wrong place. "Oh." He reworked the problem and got 89.2. "You were right."

Shrugging, Steve said, "Yeah. All my math teachers hate me, though. I can never show my work. My brain just does _something_ and I know the answer."

"That's weird," Jonathan told him. "Scientists should study you."

"Says the dude who can see ghosts," Steve said with a laugh. He laid back on Jonathan's bed. "You wanna know the worst part about being mostly-dead?"

"Still hungry?" Jonathan asked him, noticing there were still a couple hours left before the dining hall started serving dinner. 

"Yeah, that's part of it. It's like…" he sighed, looking up at the ceiling. "I'm hungry, but I can't eat. I'm tired, but I can't sleep." He chuckled. "I'm horny, but I can't even jerk off."

Jonathan let out a laugh that was equal parts startled, amused, and embarrassed. 

"You ever get ghosts that perv on you?" Steve asked then. "Like, I can't help but think that privacy's got to be a huge issue."

His face feeling bright red and hot, Jonathan admitted, "It is."

"Wow, that sucks," Steve said. "How many ghosts are there? I don't think I've seen any others. Is there another one in this room? Right now?"

"You're asking too many questions," Jonathan told him. "And no. It's just you and me."

"Cozy," Steve replied, and when Jonathan looked over at him, he grinned.

That smile made Jonathan's heart skip a beat. It was so stupid, too. Steve wasn't real. And even if he was, he wasn't someone Jonathan could have a future with. Steve liked girls, like his ex, the girl in Jonathan's class.

Oh, yeah, and his body was in a coma in Indiana.

Jonathan sighed.

"Shit, man," Steve said, sitting up. "You want me to give you some privacy? I can totally fuck off until tomorrow. If you wanted."

"No," Jonathan found himself saying. "No, you can stay. Let's watch another movie."

"Sure," Steve replied. "Something less creepy, though." 

Thinking through his collection of movies, Jonathan winced. "Maybe we should see what's on TV."

Steve laughed and sat back up. "Yeah, sure. Something fun, though."

"I'm not quite sure I want to know your definition of fun," Jonathan said, but he grabbed the remote off the top of the TV and switched over to the antenna.

~*~

"Where are we?" Steve asked, leaning over Jonathan to look out the window. 

Jonathan leaned back in his seat so he wouldn't accidentally go through Steve. He pulled out the piece of scrap paper he'd been using to talk to Steve in public, and wrote, "Just past Newark."

After he read Jonathan's note, Steve grinned. "Sweet! This is farther than I got on my own."

"Yeah, because you're a figment of my imagination," Jonathan wrote back, earning himself an amused snort as Steve sat back down in the empty seat next to Jonathan's.

"What if my soul or whatever this is," Steve said, gesturing to his body. He was wearing the same jeans and sweater he'd been wearing since Jonathan first saw him. "Needs to be attached to a real body? Because I'm not actually dead. And for a while, I was attached to Nancy, but now…?" He grinned at Jonathan, that stupid, handsome grin that made Jonathan want to tear his own heart out of his chest. "Now I'm attached to you, buddy."

"What a privilege," Jonathan muttered, which made Steve laugh, but earned him a wary look from the woman across the aisle. He gave her an apologetic wave and turned back to the reading he needed to finish before class the following day.

"I mean," Steve continued. "What are the chances that I'd wind up following my girlfriend into the same class you were taking? It's fate."

Jonathan wrote on his scrap paper the word, "coincidence."

"Where's your sense of … of _adventure_?" Steve asked, moving his arm like he was trying to nudge Jonathan, and failing. "Don't you believe in anything aside from what you can see and hear?"

Jonathan rolled his eyes and turned over the scrap paper before writing, "Half the stuff I see and hear isn't real."

"See? You're proof that there's more to the world than what most people get to experience. How can you be this way and not…" Steve made a frustrated noise. "And not believe in _fate_ or _destiny_?"

Jonathan put his attention back on his reading and didn't respond. He was sure Steve didn't want to hear about all the ways Jonathan's life had been lacking in the sort of fairy tale justice he was talking about.

"Fine. Clam up," Steve said with another huff. A minute later, he said, "I'm bored. Can we call this experiment a success? Get off the bus and walk around a little? Catch another one heading back to your place?"

Jonathan looked over at Steve, watching the way his vulnerable expression vanished when he realized Jonathan's eyes were on him. He wanted to look away, to give Steve the chance to be sad without feeling he had to put on a smile for Jonathan's sake. He wanted to do that, but he couldn't. Jonathan was transfixed by the angles of Steve's face, by the shape of his eyes.

"Jonathan?"

He had to close his eyes so he could look away. He nodded and whispered. "Yeah." He started gathering up his things, pushing them into his backpack.

"Did I do something?" Steve asked, his voice soft, almost ashamed.

Jonathan shook his head. He took out the scrap of paper and wrote, "We'll get off at the next stop. Find something good to take a picture of."

As he read it, Steve's smile returned. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, buddy. Sounds great."

Jonathan really wished Steve would stop calling him, "buddy."

~*~

"Oh, look at this!" Steve called from across the empty parking lot. Jonathan finished taking the shot he had lined up and then went over to where Steve was pointing at something. 

"What is that?" Jonathan asked, leaning in. 

Tilting his head, Steve said, "I think it's a dead rat."

"Gross," Jonathan said, but he still crouched down and lined up a shot. Before he hit the shutter, Jonathan looked up at Steve and asked, "Remind you of anyone?"

It took Steve a second to get the joke, but when he did, the wait was worth it. His face went from offended to amused and back again before he laughed out a, "Fuck you!" and tried to kick Jonathan. "I'm not dead yet!"

Jonathan almost reminded Steve that he wasn't dead yet, _that they knew of_ , but he knew it would ruin the fun they were having, so he kept his mouth shut and took the picture.

"Well, I was hungry, but now I don't think I am anymore," he said as he stood up and looked around for something else to shoot.

Steve was a few yards away, looking down at the ground, one foot behind him, kicking the ground with his toe. His hair fell over his face and he shrugged, and Jonathan knew he wouldn't show up on film, but he couldn't help but take the picture anyway.

After a moment, Steve said, "You should eat, even though I can't. It's not good to skip meals."

"Yeah, I know," Jonathan said, thinking about all the meals he used to skip between when Lonnie had left them and when Jonathan had gotten a job. If he hadn't skipped meals, there wouldn't have been enough food and his little brother, Will, would have gone to bed hungry. Of course, Jonathan's mom didn't know he'd been skipping meals. She didn't know he almost never ate until he was full, getting by on just enough for years.

The fact that the dining hall meals at NYU cost the same no matter how much he ate, and that his scholarship covered every single one of those meals still astounded him. It was more food than he'd ever had access to in his entire life, and he still felt bad if any morsel of food went to waste. He didn't stuff himself. He couldn't without feeling gluttonous and guilty, but he never went to sleep hungry anymore. 

Shrugging, Jonathan said, "Let's go catch the bus back. The dining hall will be open for dinner by the time we get there."

"Yeah, okay." Steve walked with him back through the streets of New Brunswick, and pointed to a sandwich shop as they passed it. "Hey, you could eat there."

Jonathan shook his head.

"Why not?"

"Because," Jonathan told him, keeping his voice low so no one would notice him speaking to himself, "if I eat there, I won't have enough for the bus ticket back to Indiana. At least, not until my mom sends me more money a month from now."

"Shit," Steve said. "You really wouldn't have enough?"

Shrugging, Jonathan gestured to the thrift-store clothes he was wearing and his ratty shoes. "My family doesn't have much money. It's a miracle I even get to go to NYU."

"If I…" Steve said, sighing. "If I _survive_ , I'll pay you back. I promise."

Jonathan didn't ask what would happen if Steve didn't survive. He knew they could both figure that out without having to say it aloud. He just nodded. 

~*~

That night, back in his dorm room, Jonathan said to Steve, "Hey, I'm gonna call my mom. Would you mind…?"

"Oh, yeah. Sure," Steve said, getting to his feet. "I'll go spy on the girls showering or something."

"Steve!"

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he insisted, rolling his eyes. "I'll go for a walk. Get some air." Looking down at himself, he said, "Not that I have lungs right now, but you know…"

"Yeah, I understand," Jonathan assured him, and when Steve gave him a sad smile, Jonathan found himself smiling back. And then Steve walked through the closed door and Jonathan was alone. The feeling wasn't as much of a relief as Jonathan thought it should have been.

He snatched up the phone and called home. 

"Hello?"

Hearing his mother's voice made Jonathan's throat seize up and he had to clear it before he could speak. "Hi, Mom."

"Jonathan! How are you?"

He'd been thinking about what he was going to tell his mom about the trip, but even having practiced it in his head a few times, the words got stuck. "I, um. I just found out that one of my old friends is… He's in the hospital, over in Anderson. If I took the bus home this weekend, could you…?”

“Oh, my god! Yes, of course! I can get you there,” she said. “Which friend is it? Is it serious?”

“I don’t think you know him, Mom,” Jonathan told her. “His name is Steve, and he's in a coma.”

“Jesus, what happened?”

“Car crash.” Jonathan sighed. “They arrested the guy who caused it.”

“Good,” she said. “Good.” After a moment, she asked, “You’ll stay the night with us, won’t you?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jonathan said. “I’m gonna try to get out of my Monday classes, too. So I can stay another night.”

Joyce sighed happily. “And here I didn’t think we’d get to see you until spring break!”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said. “The reason kind of sucks, but I’m glad to be coming home too. I’ll call you with when and where to pick me up, tomorrow, after I get my ticket.”

“Okay, sweetheart. If we’re not home, leave it on the machine.”

“I will.”

“How’s everything else going? Are you making any new friends?”

Thinking about the day he’d just spent with Steve, Jonathan said, “Yeah, maybe. We’ll see how it goes.”

A playful tone in her voice, Joyce asked, “What about _girlfriends_?”

“No,” he said, unable to stop the nervous chuckle that escaped him. “No girlfriends.”

He still didn’t know how to tell her there might not _ever_ be any girlfriends. He hadn’t ruled out the possibility yet, but he wasn’t sure how much false hope he should let his mother have, when the possibility was looking more and more slim by the day.

“Oh, well. School comes first, huh?”

“Sure, yeah,” Jonathan said. “It would be silly to mess up this opportunity spending too much time looking for–for the right…” He couldn’t even say “girl” out loud. “The right person.”

Joyce laughed fondly. “Oh, Jonathan. I love you, but you’re the least silly person I know. It’s okay to loosen up and have a little fun, you know.”

“Yeah, Mom. Don’t worry. I know.” He thought about the day he and Steve had just spent, doing their experiment. He’d had fun, probably for the first time in almost forever with someone other than his mom or his brother.

He supposed he’d had a few friends growing up, and sometimes he’d had fun with them, but it never lasted long. Eventually, they all found out what a freak he was. Eventually, everyone left.

It was only a matter of time before Steve left too. Either he’d wake up, and he’d go back to his life in Indiana, or he wouldn’t wake up, in which case, his spirit would likely move on sooner or later. None of the ghosts stayed with him for long. The novelty of being seen and heard got dull for all of them, and eventually they all let him drive them away. 

Of course, Steve was the only one that Jonathan developed stupid feelings for, but that didn’t mean he’d stay. Hell, if Steve found out about Jonathan’s crush, he’d probably leave and never come back. 

As nice and fun as Steve was, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would be very open-minded or understanding about that kind of thing. He was too … normal. 

It was getting late, so Jonathan went and took a shower, shaved, and brushed his teeth. He figured Steve would be back by the time he went back to his room, but there was no sign of him. Maybe he found somebody watching a normal TV show he wanted to see.

Maybe he woke up, and was back in Indiana already.

Maybe he really _was_ a delusion. If Jonathan couldn't trust any of his senses, how could he trust the newspapers he'd read? How could he trust the phone call to Steve's mother? He couldn't. 

Exhausted, Jonathan got in bed and turned off the light. It wasn't two minutes later that Steve whispered from over near the door, "Are you asleep?"

"No," Jonathan told him. "I'm trying to be, though."

"Do you mind…" Steve said, taking a few more steps into the room. "I mean, I'm going to be bored wherever I go, but it's not so bad…" He sighed. "It's not so bad with you in the room. I mean, even if I'm quiet and letting you sleep, just knowing I _could_ talk to you, and you _would_ hear me makes things, I don't know. Better. Less scary."

Jonathan bit his lip and told himself that a ghost seeking him out because he was lonely wasn't the same as having the kind of feelings Jonathan wanted him to have. Needing someone wasn't the same as wanting them. Jonathan should tell Steve to give him some space, that it was too hard being near him, when the chances of leaving this situation with a broken heart were absolutely 100 percent.

Except, he couldn't do it. He said, "You should stay. If you want."

"Thanks," Steve said, and Jonathan could see his soft smile in the dim light from the city outside his window. Then he laid down on the floor, stretching out with a groan. "You got an extra pillow?"

"Why do you need one?" Jonathan asked. "You wouldn't be able to feel it, would you?"

"No, but it's…" Steve paused and Jonathan thought he heard him swallow. His voice was thick when he continued. "Everything's so fucked right now, I just…" He sniffled. "A pillow would be more normal."

Jonathan guessed he could understand that. His heart hurting for Steve, he said, "Yeah. Hang on," and he got back out of bed. 

On the shelf of his closet, above his box of warmer-weather clothes, there was an extra pillow his mom had bought for him. Jonathan thought it was a stupid waste of money, but she insisted. He didn't have another pillowcase for it, but he supposed that didn't really matter, did it?

"Here," he said, dropping the pillow onto Steve's face, making him laugh. 

Steve sat up, swatted at Jonathan's legs in a way he could tell would have been a playful smack if he could have made contact, and then laid back down. Somehow, even though he couldn't pick up or move anything, Steve didn't sink through the pillow. He laid down on it, closing his eyes and folding his hands together over his stomach. Jonathan figured whatever it was that kept Steve from falling through the floor probably kept him from sinking through the pillow as well.

After clearing his throat, Steve said, "Thanks."

"You're welcome," Jonathan told him. 

~*~

"Oh, no," Steve said, nodding toward the aisle of the bus. "This dude is gonna try to sit in my seat."

"You could sit in the aisle," Jonathan wrote in his notebook, showing it to Steve.

Steve rolled his eyes. "I'm gonna get so bored, though. If I'm sitting here, at least I can read over your shoulder or something."

"I'm not letting you do that," Jonathan accidentally said out loud. _Shit._

The man heading for Steve's seat raised his eyebrows and then kept moving toward the back of the bus.

Steve chuckled. "Maybe the crazy person act comes in handy, sometimes."

Jonathan scoffed and rolled his eyes. Then he wrote, "Creates more problems than it solves."

"Hey, you're the expert," Steve said, watching Jonathan take his Walkman out of his backpack. "Oh, music! I miss being able to pick my own music!"

Jonathan wrote, "Pretty sure the headphones don't fit you."

Laughing, Steve pointed at the ceiling and said, "You should, like, run a string down from there, and then hang the headphones at just the right height." He laughed again. "Ghost headphones! The newest rage!"

"You're an idiot," Jonathan wrote, but he had to admit he was smiling and trying not to laugh.

As he read that, though, Steve's smile faltered.

Confused, Jonathan wrote, "Sorry. I was just kidding." It took a few moments before Steve took a deep breath and turned back, reading what Jonathan had written with watery eyes.

"No, I know," Steve told him, sniffling again. "It's just … something my- Something _Nancy_ used to say."

Jonathan gave him a smile and nodded. Then he wrote, "Maybe if I play the music loud and you lean in close enough, you can hear."

Shrugging, Steve smiled and said, "Sure. It's worth a try." Nodding toward the Walkman, Steve asked, "What are you listening to, anyway?"

Figuring it was easier than writing it, Jonathan popped the cassette out of his Walkman and tilted the title in Steve's direction. 

"Oh, Queen? Yeah, I like this album, but 'A Night at the Opera' is my favorite."

Impressed, Jonathan wrote, "You know Queen?" He underlined the "you."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Duh. I grew up on Queen. My mom has all their albums." He frowned and looked down at his hands. "I think her copy of 'Greatest Hits' was in my car that night."

"Something else?" Jonathan wrote.

Shaking his head, Steve said, "No. I could use some familiar music right now."

With a smile, Jonathan slipped the headphones onto his head and hit play, leaning to the left, toward Steve's seat. Steve leaned close too, probably close enough to put Jonathan's headphone _in_ his ear, not that Jonathan could feel him. He could see Steve out of the corner of his eye, though, and the nearness made Jonathan's stupid heart skip a beat.

~*~

Jonathan bought a sandwich during his transfer in Philadelphia, eating it quickly so Steve wouldn't have to watch him eating it for very long. There weren't so many empty seats on this next bus, so Jonathan ended up sitting in an aisle seat, next to a nice-looking older lady. 

Steve stood in the aisle, complaining as people walked through him, until he suddenly said, "Oh, shit."

Jonathan almost asked him what was wrong out loud. He got his notebook out, but Steve elaborated without having to be asked.

"Nancy just got on the bus."

"Your girlfriend?" Jonathan wrote, except it took Steve a moment to look down at his note.

Nodding, Steve said, "Yeah. She took a seat near the front. I'm gonna go up there for a minute."

That seemed like a stupid idea to Jonathan, but he couldn't call after Steve without disturbing everyone sitting around him. So, he sighed and pulled out more of his school work. This was an overnight bus trip, scheduled to reach Indianapolis in the late morning. 

It took until a half hour of traveling had passed before Steve came back. He sat on the floor next to Jonathan and said, "She looks really sad. Even cried a little bit. Maybe she knows something we don't."

"Like what?" Jonathan wrote, letting that page of his notebook dangle down where Steve could read it.

After he tilted his head and read the note, Steve said, "Like, maybe I'm dead. My parents like Nancy a lot. They want me to propose to her. If I died, she'd be one of the first to know."

Jonathan took a moment to think this over. He figured he should probably offer to talk to her and find out. Not that he wanted to talk to her _at all_. Jonathan also found himself scared of finding out the answer to whether or not Steve was dead. 

If he was dead, that was it. Eventually his spirit would move on. At best, Jonathan might have a roommate for a few months. Maybe a year. If Steve was dead, Jonathan would never get to actually hold his hand or hug him, and god, he'd been hoping for that, hadn't he?

Jonathan should have known better than to hope for something to go right for him. Things never did go his way. Not in this lifetime. 

Maybe in the next.

In the end, Jonathan didn't have to pose the question. Steve asked anyway. "Do you think you could talk to her? Find out why she's going to Indianapolis?"

Sighing, Jonathan wrote, "Maybe." Then he wrote, "I'll try when we make a rest stop."

Steve nodded, hugging his knees and resting his chin on them. He seemed so much smaller, so much more fragile sitting that way than the ways Jonathan had seen him before. It made Jonathan write another note, "Are you okay?"

After Steve read it, he shook his head and said, "No." He gave a sad laugh and said, "I'm really not okay, at all." Looking up, he met Jonathan's eyes for a long, intense moment before saying, "I don't know how to thank you for doing this. Jonathan…"

Jonathan bit his lips and looked away. Staring down at his notebook, he tried to figure out what to write. 

Before he could, Steve leaned over, his head against Jonathan's armrest, and said, "You should let more people get to know you. You're not as hard to like as you think you are."

Sniffling and pushing at his stupid, traitorous wet eyes with his sleeve, Jonathan wrote, "You just have low standards," and showed it to Steve.

He laughed, but his eyes were wet, too.

~*~

A little over two hours into the trip, the bus made it to Harrisburg. Jonathan took his things when he got off the bus, used the bathroom, and then got back on. Nancy was already back in her seat near the front, and he wasn't quite sure she'd gotten off the bus in the first place. 

Steve was right, she did look sad. 

And the seat across the aisle from her was empty.

Shit, okay. As much as he didn't want to, he was doing this.

Jonathan got the attention of the person sitting in the window seat, an older man who looked pretty sleepy. "Anyone sitting here?" he asked quietly. The man shook his head.

Jonathan sat down. When he looked over at Nancy, she was looking back at him. Before he could think of any of the opening lines that he'd come up with over the past hour and a half, she smiled and asked in a quiet voice, "Hey, do you go to NYU?"

"Yeah," he said, surprised that she recognized him. "You're in my composition class, right?"

She smiled and nodded, then offered him her hand, "Nancy Wheeler."

Jonathan wasn't used to people being this direct with him. Usually they were too scared or weirded out or something. Or they just didn't care to get to know the quiet kid in the corner of the room. Being greeted like anyone else was kind of strange.

He didn't like it.

Still, he took her hand and shook it. "Jonathan Byers."

Steve kneeled on the empty seat in front of Nancy, watching all this happen over the seat back, which didn't help Jonathan's nerves.

With a smile that was almost mischievous, Nancy asked, "So, are you going all the way to LA?"

"No," he told her. "Just going for a quick visit home. Indianapolis."

"A fellow Hoosier!" she said with a little laugh.

Jonathan thought if she was sad, she was hiding it pretty well. Of course, Steve was bound to know her better. Maybe he could tell.

"Are you going back to Indiana too?"

"Yeah," she said, and her face fell. Ah, there it was. 

"I'm guessing it's for a less-than-fun reason."

Nancy sighed and nodded. She shifted back into her chair and looked down at her hands, but she answered his question. "Yeah, not really. I kinda have to say goodbye to someone."

"Goodbye, like a funeral?" Jonathan asked, shooting Steve a quick look.

Shrugging one shoulder, Nancy said, "Not exactly." Then she shook her head and said, "It's stupid."

Frowning, Jonathan told her, "If it's making you this upset, it can't be _that_ stupid."

Nancy flashed him a slight smile, and Jonathan thought if he was to like a girl, it might be someone like Nancy. He understood why Steve liked her. "It's just…" she said, tracing her finger around the edge of her book. "My high school boyfriend got into a car crash and…" Biting her lip and pushing at her eyes with her sleeve, Nancy shook her head.

Jonathan looked up at Steve, who said, "Keep her talking, man. She's about to tell you."

"Did-" Jonathan asked, hating to ask this question. "Did he die?"

Nancy shook her head. 

Steve gave an audible sigh of relief and put his head down on the seat back under his hands. "Oh, my god."

Jonathan tried not to let his own relief show on his face. After all, Nancy didn't know he knew Steve.

"But, he's in pretty bad shape," Nancy added. "And I can't help but feel like...like the crash was my fault."

Biting back at the urge to ask her about the hit-and-run driver who'd been arrested, Jonathan did his best to think quickly for another question to ask. The one he hit on was, "Oh, god. Were you driving?"

Nancy shook her head again, taking a tissue out of her purse and drying her nose with it. "I broke up with him an hour before the crash. So I wouldn't have to see him over Christmas Break. I'm sure it distracted him."

When Jonathan sneaked a glance over at Steve, it was clear from his face that he didn't remember the break up.

"So, yeah," Nancy said, wincing. "Sorry to dump this all on you."

"It's not a problem," Jonathan assured her. "I mean, we're on this bus for another twelve hours. What am I gonna do? My composition essay?"

Nancy laughed and blew her nose. "That's the kind of joke he would have told."

The woman sitting on the other side of Nancy shifted against the window, like she was uncomfortable. Jonathan couldn't tell if it was due to the bus or the conversation she was probably overhearing. 

"Ask her why she's visiting me if we broke up," Steve demanded, an angry furrow between his brows.

"So, um," Jonathan said, trying to figure out how to pose the question. "How come you're taking a fifteen hour bus ride to visit a guy you broke up with?"

With another sigh, Nancy said, "He didn't tell anyone we broke up before the crash. His parents still think we're together."

"Wow," Jonathan said. "Are you going to tell them?"

"I think I have to," she said. "When the crash happened, I thought it would be easier not to tell them. All the doctors thought he was going to pass. And then he didn't."

Jonathan nodded gravely. He wasn’t quite sure what else to say, now that he'd gotten the information he needed, so he told her, "Well, good luck with that.”

"Thank you," she said, giving him another smile. "Gosh, we've been talking about me this whole time. What about you?"

"What about me?" Jonathan asked, noticing when Steve gave a frustrated huff. Jonathan shot him a look that he hoped said, "What?"

Nancy followed Jonathan's line of sight for a second, but then returned her eyes to his face. "You said you're visiting home. Your family?" She gave him an encouraging smile, like she was trying to draw more conversation out of him.

"No," Steve said. "Not happening, Jonathan. You can't do this to me. She's flirting with you! Please, you can't date her!"

Jonathan tried not to visibly roll his eyes. He didn't want to date Nancy. Except, how was he supposed to write that in a note to Steve without Nancy noticing? Responding to Nancy, he said, "Yeah, my mom and brother." Then he had a thought. "And my…" Jonathan lowered his voice and told Nancy in a whisper, "My _boyfriend_."

"Oh!" Nancy said, looking surprised, but not horrified, which was good.

Jonathan worried about Steve's reaction, but he laughed and said, "Oh, man. Good save! A fake girlfriend might not have gotten her to back off, but a fake _boyfriend_? Perfect! Now she'll think you're gay."

Jonathan waited for Nancy to look away before meeting Steve's eyes, trying to will him to understand the truth and simultaneously hoping that he wouldn't. Something shifted in Steve's expression just as Jonathan looked away.

"Well," Nancy said with a kind smile. "I hope you have a lovely visit."

"Thanks," Jonathan replied. "I hope your thing goes well, too."

"Thanks." Nancy picked up her book and shrugged. "I suppose I should try to finish more of my reading, sorry."

"Oh, no. That's fine," Jonathan told her, watching as the last few passengers got back on the bus. "I should work on my stuff too."

"Hey," Steve said as the bus started moving. "There's two empty seats a few rows back. You should move there."

Nodding, Jonathan grabbed his stuff. He murmured to Nancy, "Talk to you later," and then moved to the seats Steve pointed out. He felt kind of like a jerk sitting in the aisle seat and leaving the window seat empty for Steve, but what else was he supposed to do? Ask if, please, couldn't his imaginary friend sit there?

As they sat together, Jonathan got the impression that Steve wanted to have a conversation. He pulled his notebook and a pen out of his bag. When Steve didn't start talking right away, Jonathan wrote, "Well, at least we know you're still alive."

After reading the note, Steve nodded. "Yeah, that's good."

"So, what's the problem?" Jonathan wrote.

Steve shrugged and crossed his arms. 

Figuring he wasn't going to talk, Jonathan sighed and turned away from him. He dug in his bag for his Walkman and a new tape.

While he was still looking away, Steve asked, "Do you really have a boyfriend?"

There was a weird tone in Steve's voice and when Jonathan looked over at him, he didn't look angry or disgusted. He looked sad, maybe. 

Meeting Steve's eyes, Jonathan shook his head.

Steve didn't look away when he asked, "But would you? If you met the right guy?"

His heart beating wildly in his chest, Jonathan thought about lying. He thought about saying, "No. That would be gross and weird." But really, what could Steve do if he knew the truth? Stop talking to Jonathan? That would suck, but it wasn't like Steve could beat him up. Not while his body was still in a coma. He couldn't even tell other people. He was stuck with Jonathan, and every weird, unnatural thing about him.

Jonathan nodded.

Steve frowned, but he nodded back. "Okay. Um, cool."

Jonathan wrote, "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

"No, I'm _not_ ," Steve insisted. "I just…" Shaking his head, Steve said, "Never mind. What are we listening to next?" He nodded toward the Walkman in Jonathan's lap.

Jonathan held up the cassette he'd picked out, still in its case.

"The Smiths?" Steve asked, shaking his head. "Never heard of them."

Jonathan wrote, "You're gonna like it," and then put the cassette in his Walkman and pressed play.

Steve leaned close, just like before, and listened along with Jonathan.

~*~

By the time the sun came up, Jonathan had caught more sleep than he'd expected to. Sleeping upright wasn't exactly comfortable, but oddly enough, he felt more relaxed with Steve watching over him than he would have without. There had been a few seconds of panic when he woke around sunrise and looked over to see the seat next to him empty.

But when he leaned out into the aisle, he saw Steve sitting there, cross legged and sitting, watching Nancy. After a minute, he looked down the aisle and saw Jonathan watching him. He got to his feet and walked back toward Jonathan, saying, "Sorry. Your Walkman ran out of tape and I got bored of staring at you. Decided to go stare at her for a while." Then he said, "Watch out," and stepped through Jonathan to get to his seat.

Finding his pen, Jonathan wrote, "Did you see what you were hoping to see?"

Steve frowned and shook his head. "I don't… I don't understand the question."

“Nancy,” Jonathan wrote. “There has to be some reason you were staring at her.”

Steve shrugged and looked out the window. “Just figured it might be the last time I get to hang out with her. Since apparently she broke up with me.”

The look on Steve’s face made Jonathan’s heart hurt. “You don’t remember that?” 

It took Steve a long moment before he looked away from the window long enough to read Jonathan’s note. “No. I remember getting in my car. I remember driving. But no, most of the rest of that day is just gone.”

Jonathan gave him a sympathetic nod. 

“Do other dead people remember dying?” Steve asked him, and Jonathan winced at the way Steve referred to himself as dead.

“Some do,” Jonathan wrote in the notebook. “Most don’t.” Then he added, “I get the impression that sudden deaths are rarely remembered. Accidents. Violence.”

“Great,” Steve said with a scoff. “Just another average, perfectly normal thing about me.”

Caught off guard, Jonathan asked, “What do you mean?”

Pointing toward the front of the bus, Steve said, “That was always Nancy’s big complaint about me. I was too normal. Too boring. Too caught up in all the bullshit around making prom king and other high school stuff like that.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Honestly? I’m surprised she didn’t break up with me sooner.”

“She thought you were too normal?” Jonathan asked, underlining the word normal.

Steve nodded. "How fucked up is that? Other guys get broken up with for being too weird. I got broken up with for being too normal."

Jonathan chuckled, then replied, "I guess you guys weren't right for each other."

"Guess not."

~*~

Jonathan got off the bus in Indianapolis, just behind Nancy. When she looked back and saw him, she smiled and said, "Have a nice weekend. I'll see you in class."

"Yeah, you too," he said, giving her a polite smile as they entered the bus station together. "Bye."

She waved before walking away, meeting a woman with blonde hair and hugging her. 

Looking around for his own family, he found his mom sitting in one of the chairs, watching the TV in the corner and bouncing her leg. Jonathan made sure Steve was still with him before heading over to his mom.

"Hey, I'm here."

"Oh, Jonathan!" she cried, jumping up to her feet and putting her arms around him. "There you are."

"Yep, here I am," he said. "Thanks for coming to get me."

"Of course," she said, pulling back and looking at him, like she hadn't just seen him two weeks ago when he went back to school after the winter break. "Come on, let's go."

After grabbing lunch at a drive through and heading home, Jonathan asked, "Do you mind if I go to the hospital by myself? I just think it would be better…"

Joyce nodded, said, "Yeah, that makes sense," gave him a hug, then the keys to her car. "Give me a call if you're going to miss dinner."

"I will, Mom. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

As much as he wanted to stay at the house longer, Jonathan could tell Steve was getting nervous and antsy. It was better to get this over with. Jonathan got back in the car, and Steve sat in the passenger seat. "Ready?" Jonathan asked him.

"Yeah, I guess," Steve replied, reaching for his seat belt before realizing he couldn't touch it.

Jonathan put his own seat belt on and started the engine. "Is it going to be a problem? Driving on the road where you crashed? I could go the scenic route."

Shaking his head, Steve said, "No. Let's just get there."

Jonathan drove for a few minutes, heading for the northeastern part of the city and the freeway that would take them out to Anderson. Then he couldn't help but ask, "Are you okay?"

"Sure," Steve said, but he licked his bottom lip and bit it, staring out the windshield. Jonathan didn't immediately contradict him, giving him space to admit on his own that he was anything but okay. It was another ten minutes before Steve said, "I don't want to see myself like that. What if I look really different? What if I'm... I'm brain dead? And that's why you can see me?"

"I don't know," Jonathan told him. "If any of the other ghosts have been in comas, I didn't go looking for their bodies like this."

"Have you made friends with any of the other ghosts?" Steve asked, sounding almost insecure. 

Shaking his head, Jonathan said, "Not for a long time. When I was little, one of the ghosts was my age. We stayed friends for a while, but eventually he moved on or something. He stopped coming around."

Shifting in his seat like he was uncomfortable, Steve asked, "There's little kid ghosts?"

"Sometimes little kids die," Jonathan told him. "I haven't seen any who were too young to talk or anything, but yeah. There's kid ghosts."

"Sorry," Steve said with a shiver. "It never occurred to me."

"Yeah, most people don't think about kids dying very often." 

A minute later, Steve said, "You know, that's why your creepy-meter is broken. Kid ghosts. After that, there can't be much that seems creepier."

Chuckling, Jonathan shook his head. "Maybe you're just a wuss when it comes to creepy stuff."

"Hey!" Steve said, but he was smiling. 

The tape in the deck hit the end, so Jonathan ejected it. He leaned over into Steve's space and opened the glove compartment. After putting the old tape into the compartment, Jonathan kept his eyes on the road and fished out another one. He held it in front of Steve and asked, "What's this one?"

"It says Bowie. Let's Dance." 

"Yeah, that'll work," Jonathan said, putting the tape into the deck and rewinding it before pressing play.

~*~

Jonathan looked through the windshield of his mom's car up at the hospital. It was tiny compared to most of the buildings in New York, and only half the parking lot was full. He pulled into a spot and parked before looking over at Steve. "Are you ready?"

"No," he said, "but let's do it anyway. Get this over with."

It sounded like Steve had less faith that this was going to work than he'd had before. Something about his sudden lack of optimism made Jonathan's heart sink. So, he tried to sound positive when he said, "Come on. It's gonna work."

Steve nodded and followed when Jonathan got out of the car. 

Inside the hospital entrance there was an information desk. Jonathan asked after Steve's room number, and then went to the elevator. When he got to the right floor, he found the room number and paused outside it, looking over at Steve. Speaking as quietly as he could, Jonathan asked, "What if your parents are in there? What do I say to them?"

"I don't know," Steve replied. He gestured to the closed door. "Maybe I should see if the coast is clear?"

Jonathan nodded. 

Steve disappeared through the door. Thirty seconds later, he still hadn't come out. Jonathan debated going in or waiting longer, and he decided on waiting longer. There were a few chairs down the hallway a bit, so Jonathan went over there and sat down to wait.

Ten minutes later, someone came out of Steve's room, but it wasn't his parents. It was Nancy.

 _Shit_.

If she saw Jonathan here, she might think he was stalking her or something. He turned away from her and grabbed a magazine from the table next to the chairs. He opened it and hid his face in it, holding his breath.

When he saw Nancy going down the hallway the other way, Jonathan let out his breath in relief. He got up and went to the door of Steve's hospital room. He had to take a deep breath to steel himself for what he was going to see inside the room.

And then he went in.

The room was brighter than Jonathan expected, bright winter sun streaming in through the window, and all the lights on. There was a curtain hiding most of the room, until Jonathan stepped in further. He saw a hospital bed, and Jonathan could see the feet of the person lying in it, but not their face. Another step into the room and he noticed the sleeve of Steve's sweater on the armrest of the chair next to the bed.

Steve was sitting in the chair, his face in his hands and his shoulders shaking slightly. Jonathan didn't understand for a second, until he realized Steve was crying. 

When Jonathan took another step, he saw the face of the person in the bed. While it was undeniably Steve lying there, he looked so different from his ghost that it was hard to recognize them as the same person. The young man in the bed was still and expressionless. His hair was very short, like it had been buzzed off sometime after the accident, but had started growing back. There was a long red-looking scar on the left side of his scalp, and another few on his face.

But it was definitely Steve. Jesus Christ, he was _real_.

Steve took a sharp breath and said with a thick voice, "Oh, hey." He sniffled and tried to wipe at his eyes, but he didn't actually have tears, or the ability to brush them away, even if he had them. "Sorry, I…"

"No, I get it," Jonathan told him, standing at the end of the bed. "It's gotta be difficult seeing yourself like this."

"They cut my hair!" Steve said, gesturing to his body. "My _hair_! It hasn't been this short since I was a baby!" 

Snorting, Jonathan could tell Steve was using a joke to deflect the conversation away from his grief. He sat in the chair next to Steve's and said, "It's just hair. It'll grow back."

"I'll have scars now," Steve said, leaning forward and looking down at his hands as he rubbed them together (or at least attempted to). "My face was…" He shrugged. "I don't know. I figured it was the thing that most people liked best about me. They never really liked me for my– my _personality_."

"Most people are idiots," Jonathan said, only realizing after he'd said those words how much they revealed about his feelings for Steve.

Steve scoffed. "Come on. If I'd looked like _that_ when you met me," Steve gestured at his body again, "there's no way you would have put up with me this long. No way."

Frowning over at Steve, Jonathan insisted, "You're wrong."

"No, come on! If this guy walked into your lecture, yelling at his ex-girlfriend to pay attention to him, you would have avoided him like the plague," Steve said, shaking his head. "I look like Frankenstein! No one wants to be close to someone like that." He sniffled a little and said, "You wouldn't sit next to that guy on the bus."

"You don't look like Frankenstein," Jonathan said, rolling his eyes. "And I would so sit next to you. In case you haven't noticed, I'm _not_ one of the pretty people you're used to interacting with. I grew up strange-looking, talking to myself. _I'm_ the one people didn't want to sit next to on the bus, not the other way around."

Steve met Jonathan's eyes for a long moment and he didn't look away when he said, "When Nancy was in here, saying goodbye, she went like she was going to kiss me, but then she stopped. Like she _couldn't_ , and I get why. I'm _disgusting_ now."

"You're not!"

His voice dark, Steve muttered, " _Prove it_."

Jonathan did the first thing he could think of and shifted over to sitting on the bed next to Steve's body. He looked up at Steve's face, his _real_ face, scarred, but still compelling, and said, "See? I can sit next to you, no problem." He reached out and wrapped his hand around Steve's, finding it so _real_ and _warm_ that it suddenly felt hard to breathe. "I can– I can hold your hand, Steve."

"Yeah, maybe," Steve said, sighing, "but you're one person, Jonathan. What happens if I do wake up? Who am I gonna have then?"

Looking over at Steve's ghost, Jonathan promised him, "You're still gonna have me."

Steve frowned, giving Jonathan another one of those long looks. "You'd still be my friend? Even if you weren't the only person I could talk to anymore?"

Jonathan nodded. "Would you still be my friend?" he asked, having to sniffle because his eyes and his nose were getting wet. "If _I_ wasn't the only person in the whole world you could talk to?"

Steve looked down at his hands and sniffled again. The silence was starting to feel insulting, but then he said, "Yeah. Yeah, I would."

Squeezing the hand in his, rubbing his thumb along Steve's skin, Jonathan let out a relieved breath. He smiled over at Steve's ghost. "It's been a long time since I had a friend. Not sure I know how anymore."

"You've been doing pretty well this whole week," Steve assured him with one of those soft smiles that made Jonathan's heart flip over in his chest. "You're a better friend than any of the other assholes I used to call friends."

Jonathan smiled and nodded, looking over at Steve's body. His face wasn't that bad, actually. When it healed, Jonathan was sure he would be just as handsome as ever. Compelled, he reached up and traced one of the mostly-healed scars with a brush of his thumb. 

Behind him, Steve asked in a voice so quiet, it was almost a whisper, "Would you– I mean, with me looking like this, would you want to…"

Unable to turn around and face him, Jonathan kept his eyes on Steve's body. "Would I want to, what?"

Steve sounded closer when he spoke again, just over Jonathan's shoulder. "You like me, right? Like…"

Jonathan could tell what Steve was insinuating, and as much as he was terrified to admit it, the word tumbled from his lips, " _Yes_."

"Even when I look like that?"

Still not able to meet Steve's eyes, Jonathan nodded. "Probably even more when you look like that." Laughing softly, Jonathan said, "You're not as intimidating this way."

Steve chuckled, but it was a wet sort of noise. Jonathan still couldn't look at him.

Whispering almost in Jonathan's ear, Steve asked, "Would you kiss me?"

Jonathan shivered and nodded. The air around them felt sharp and fragile, like it was going to shatter at any second. He couldn't look back. "Can I?"

"Yeah."

Jonathan had no idea what he was doing, but he shifted further up the bed and leaned close to Steve's body. He placed a soft, lingering kiss on Steve's lips. If this was the only time he was going to be able to do this, Jonathan wanted to make it count. The lips under his were warm, but slightly chapped, and they didn't kiss him in return.

Sighing as he sat back up, Jonathan admitted, "I didn't think you'd ever want me to do that."

He waited for a response, but after a few long moments, there was nothing. Jonathan frowned and turned.

Steve was gone.

"Steve?" Jonathan asked, turning the other way in case Steve had sneaked behind him somehow. 

He wasn't there either.

"Come on, Steve," Jonathan said, sweeping the room with his eyes again. "This isn't funny. Where did you go?"

"Steve? Steve!"

Jonathan was just about to stand up and start searching when the hand in Jonathan's twitched.

Turning so quickly it hurt, Jonathan looked back at Steve's body and squeezed his hand. "Steve?"

Steve's hand twitched again.

"Can you hear me?" Jonathan asked, reaching out with his free hand and cupping Steve's face. He brushed his thumb across Steve's cheekbone, still marveling at the fact that he was real. "Steve?"

Steve hand gave an undeniable squeeze.

"Oh, that's good," Jonathan told him, so excited at the prospect of Steve _waking up_ that he leaned in and kissed Steve again. His lips still brushing against Steve's, Jonathan said, "Come on, Steve. Wake up."

Steve's eyelashes fluttered against Jonathan's cheek. 

He leaned back, watching Steve's face as he opened his eyes. He took a few moments before focusing on Jonathan's face. For one heart-stopping moment, Jonathan thought Steve didn't recognize him. But then he squeezed Jonathan's hand again and smiled.

Grinning back, Jonathan said, "It worked."

Steve opened his mouth, but his voice didn't work, which made his smile disappear. 

"It's probably just because you've been asleep so long," Jonathan told him, squeezing Steve's hand again. "Do you want me to go find the nurse?"

Shaking his head, Steve smiled at Jonathan and pointed at his lips.

"Yeah," Jonathan said, his cheeks heating up. "I kissed you."

Steve pointed at his lips again, and then clumsily grabbed Jonathan by his jacket, pulling him closer.

Chuckling, Jonathan asked, "Is this you asking for another kiss?"

Steve nodded, and this time when Jonathan kissed him, he kissed back. Jonathan didn't know what he was doing, but it felt amazing, and when he pulled back, the joy he felt was so big and unmanageable that he laughed and cried at the same time. With his free hand, Jonathan wiped his tears away.

The breath Steve let out was almost like a laugh too, and he was grinning just as widely as Jonathan.

"I'm not used to you not being able to talk," Jonathan admitted, squeezing Steve's hand again. "You should be chatting my ear off."

Steve rolled his eyes and cleared his throat. Then he croaked, "Hi."

"Hi."

Lifting his eyebrows and gesturing toward the door, Steve asked, "Nurse?"

"Yeah, I'll get someone," Jonathan told him, standing up, but unable to let go of Steve's hand yet. "I'm just… Enjoying one more minute of having you to myself."

Pointing to his face, Steve asked, "Better than Frankenstein?" 

"Yeah," Jonathan said with another laugh. "Much better." 

After kissing Steve's hand, Jonathan let it go and pushed the nurse call button. Sitting down in the chair next to Steve's bed, Jonathan asked, "How are you feeling?"

Steve made a so-so gesture with his hand. 

"How much do you remember?"

Steve held Jonathan's gaze and said, "Everything."

Before Jonathan could respond, the door opened and a nurse came in. When she got around the curtain, she stopped short. "Oh, my god! You're awake!"

Steve gave her a self-conscious little wave.

Turning to Jonathan, the nurse asked, "When did he wake up?"

"Just a minute ago," Jonathan said. It had probably been closer to five minutes at this point, but Jonathan figured his estimate was close enough. 

She took a look at the machines around Steve, and then said, "I'll be right back."

After she left, Jonathan got up, standing beside Steve's bed. "Maybe I should go before your parents get here."

"Don't," Steve said, reaching for Jonathan. "Please? Stay?"

Nodding, Jonathan told him. "Okay. Okay, I will."

~*~

A week and a half later, when Jonathan got back to his dorm room after class, his phone was already ringing. Scrambling to set down his things and pick up the phone at the same time, Jonathan ended up dropping the receiver on the floor before getting it to his ear. 

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's me," said Steve's voice, and Jonathan felt a smile jump onto his face. "Did you check your mail today?"

"I got it out of the box, but I haven't looked at it," Jonathan told him, putting the receiver to his shoulder so he could use his hands to shuffle through the mail. The third item down was a blue envelope that looked like it might have a card in it. "Oh, there's one in here from you."

"Open it," Steve said, and Jonathan thought it sounded like he was smiling.

"Okay," Jonathan said as he put down the rest of the mail and tore open the envelope. Inside was a card that had a few blue flowers on it, and in a pretty font said, "Thank you." When Jonathan opened the card, a couple slips of paper fell out. The first was a check for… a _lot_ of money. "What the hell, Steve? This check? It's too much!"

"It's enough so you can fly back home for spring break," Steve explained. "The doctors say I'll probably be walking pretty good by then. And this way, you can spend less time on the bus and more time visiting me."

Jonathan laughed, feeling grateful and unworthy at the same time. "Yeah, okay, okay. Thanks." Then he picked up the other slip of paper, which was folded. "What's this?" he asked as he picked it up and unfolded it.

"That's another thing the doctor says I should be able to do by spring break," Steve told him.

As he finished unfolding the drawing, Jonathan saw it was a drawing of two stick figures in a _very_ compromising position. "Steve!" he cried with a laugh. 

"Just… letting you know where my head's at these days," Steve told him.

Sitting down on his bed, Jonathan sighed and smiled as he admitted, "Yeah, me too."

"Good," Steve said, leaving a heavy pause in the air, during which Jonathan remembered what it had felt like to kiss Steve goodbye. But then he said, "I'm so bored today, babe. Tell me what's going on with you."

"Finally developed the pictures I took that day in New Brunswick," Jonathan told him, getting the folder with the photos out of his backpack and paging through them. When he got to the picture after the dead rat, he noticed something he hadn't seen when he was in the dark room. 

Squinting at it, Jonathan tried to make out what seemed off about the picture. And then he saw it.

"Cool," Steve said. "Am I in any of them?"

"Yeah," Jonathan said with a surprised scoff. "There's the faintest outline of your shoe in this one."

"Wait, really?" 

"Yeah," Jonathan said, looking through the rest of the photos in the dim February sun coming through his window. "Weird."

Steve said, "I told you I was real."

"Yeah, you did." Shaking his head, Jonathan propped the photo up on his desk, against the wall. Steve was real. He'd always been real. 

The old guy reading the decade-old paper in the corner of his lecture hall that morning? Well, that was debatable.

Pulling his attention away from the picture, Jonathan asked, "So, how's your day going, Sleeping Beauty?"

Steve groaned. "When are you gonna stop calling me that?"

"Never," Jonathan told him with a pleased grin, shoving the rest of his mail onto the floor and laying back on his bed. "I woke you with a kiss. It was fate. Destiny."

"You don't believe in any of that," Steve muttered.

Still grinning, Jonathan grabbed his pillow and hugged it to his chest. "I believe in you."

"Yeah, yeah," Steve said. "Don't expect me to call you Prince Charming."

"That was a different movie," Jonathan told him.

"Oh, my god." Steve gave an exasperated laugh. "Prince Know-it-all. Prince Creepy."

"Prince _Yours_ ," Jonathan offered.

Steve made a choking sort of noise, and then replied, "Yeah, okay. That one works."

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments! Thanks for reading!
> 
> If you want to chat, you can find me over [on tumblr](https://pterawaters.tumblr.com/).


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